My First Nickname:

I think it was 1956. It was an election year and Eisenhower was running for re-election. It must have been on the radio or maybe we had our first TV by then, but the effect of the enormous crowd at the Republican convention chanting "We Like Ike!" over and over was mesmerizing. It somehow infected me. I started saying "I like Ike!" around the house and posted similar signs on the walls of my room. I told my Dad and Mom that, if I could, I would vote for Ike. Of course, they were both strongly democratic and were for Adlai Stevenson. Compared to the cheering going on for Ike, I just couldn't get excited about the intellectual "egghead" alternative. Although my parents may have been appalled, they were committed to their children having open minds and expressed only mild annoyance at my juvenile political expressions. Shortly thereafter, Dad gave me my first nickname, at least that I remember - "Shit for Brains", or SFB for short. My Dad could always make me laugh
and I thought this was hilarious! That it could be construed as demeaning or disrespectful never occurred to me - it was part of my Dad's way of showing affection. He wrote postcards to us when he was away at meetings and would put in "say Hi to SFB". I think SFB eventually got discarded, especially four years later when John Kennedy ran against Richard Nixon. At that point, a rejection Nixon was somehow easy, even though he had served a Ike's VP, and I regained some political capital around the house. But SFB stuck with me somewhere, at least subliminally. It was like an intellectual gauntlet - maybe I really did have shit for brains. One way or the other, I was never overconfident about my brainpower and worked extra hard to compensate for not having what seemed to come easy for others. Ultimately, I think the SFB designation helped me in the real world.